Fathers' Rights

Proponents of fathers' rights, which became a central issue of the late-twentieth-century men's movement, contend that changes initiated by the contemporary feminist movement have privileged women in divorce and child custody cases, to the detriment of both fathers and children. They argue that fatherhood is central to masculine identity, and men must therefore play a greater role in defining it. Focusing in particular on custody and visitation rights, child support, and abortion issues, fathers' rights groups seek to educate men and lobby for legislation that supports their agenda. The fathers' rights lobby may well represent the most active faction of the men's movement.

At the height of the feminist movement in the 1960s, some men came to share feminists' conviction that the traditional gender roles of American society needed to be transformed. Most especially, these men felt that social conventions that assigned to women the role of primary caregiver robbed men of both masculine fulfillment and crucial input into the lives of their children. Their concerns were heightened by rising divorce rates and the realization that a growing number of children were being raised by single, divorced mothers. In response, they formed male-bonding groups and shared techniques for more participatory forms of fathering, particularly after divorce. Most of these early organizations accepted the feminist premise that women had been victimized by patriarchy, but they also believed that the system of male dominance hindered the development of men who wished to explore nontraditional models of masculinity. Adherents to this philosophy sought to be more emotionally connected to [Page 167]their partners and children, to fulfill traditionally female-identified domestic responsibilities, and to censure men who invoked patriarchal privileges.

Many men in these early groups agitated for laws to be changed to make greater concessions for mothers, not for fathers. This was specifically in response to a court system that tended to regard children as the property of their fathers and to penalize women seeking a divorce, especially those who initiated divorce proceedings. But when no-fault divorce laws instituted in the 1970s resulted in changes that often privileged maternal child rearing, a new, decidedly nonfeminist faction of “masculinists” began to gain power. The masculinist position was first clearly articulated by Charles V. Metz, who founded the first formal fathers' rights organization, Divorce Racket Busters (later renamed United States Divorce Reform), in 1960. In his seminal book, Divorce and Custody for Men (1968), Metz argued that sexual discrimination was primarily perpetrated against men. Masculinists explicitly rejected the notion that women were oppressed. Instead, they believed that fathers were victimized and villainized by the new divorce laws. They felt particularly affronted when, during the 1970s, individual chapters of the National Organization for Women (NOW) began to voice opposition to joint-custody arrangements. (Their concern later intensified when, in 1996, NOW and its sympathizers officially advanced an Action Alert on Fathers' Rights in opposition to the Fathers' Count Act, which NOW claimed would weaken mothers' custodial rights).

Other masculinist groups continued to emerge in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1971, Richard Doyle established the Coalition of American Divorce Reform Elements (CADRE) in an attempt to form a united multi-organizational group that would expand divorced men's agendas beyond family arbitration (the focus of Metz's organization) to include child abuse, biological gender issues, affirmative action, paternity court, and welfare for unwed mothers. Unable to develop a singular focus and strained by competing constituencies and agendas, CADRE disbanded in 1973. Doyle then helped to create the Men's Rights Association (MRA), whose program concentrated on lobbying efforts, national legislation, and providing attorney referral and other advocacy services for fathers. The MRA thus created the template for subsequent fathers' rights organizations. Such organizations multiplied during the late 1970s and early 1980s, addressing custody and child-support matters and arguing that affirmative-action policies discriminated against men and should be illegal. The MRA reported that by 1977 there were 79 fathers' rights groups in twenty-five states and the District of Columbia; by 1981 there were 195 such groups.

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